(614) Miss More, in her last letter, had said—"Mail-coaches, which come to others, come not to me: letters and newspapers, now that they travel In coaches, like gentlemen and ladies, come not within ten miles of my hermitage: and while other fortunate provincials are studying the world and its ways, and are feasting upon elopement, divorces, and suicides, tricked out in all the elegancies of Mr. Topham's phraseology, I am obliged to be contented with village vices, petty iniquities, and vulgar sins," Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 77.-E.
(615) Major Topham was the proprietor of the fashionable morning paper entitled The World. "In this paper," says Mr. Gifford, in his preface to the Baviad, "were given the earliest specimens of those unqualified and audacious attacks on all private character, and which the town first smiled at for their quaintness then tolerated for their absurdity; now—that other papers equally wicked and more intelligible, have ventured to imitate it—will have to lament to the last hour of British liberty." In 1791, Major Topham published the Life of John Elwes the miser; which Walpole considered one of the most amusing anecdotical books in the English language.-E.
(616) While the Duke of Dorset, who kept her was ambassador at Paris. The Countess of Salisbury, to the fall OF whose garter has been attributed the foundation of the order of the Garter.
Letter 318 To Miss Hannah More.
Strawberry Hill, July 12, 1788. (page 402)
Won't you repent of having opened the correspondence, my dear Madam, when you find my letters come so thick upon you? In this instance, however, I am only to blame in part, for being too ready to take advice, for the sole reason for which advice ever is taken, 'because it fell in with my inclination. You said in your last that you feared you took up time of mine to the prejudice of the public; implying, I imagine, that I might employ it in composing. Waving both your compliment, and my own vanity, I will speak very seriously to you on that subject, and with exact truth. My simple writings have had better fortune than they had any reason to expect; and I fairly believe, in a great degree, because gentlemen-writers, who do not write for interest, are treated with some civility if they do not write absolute nonsense. I think so, because I have not unfrequently known much better works than mine much more neglected, if the name, fortune, and situation of the authors were below mine. I wrote early, from youth, spirits, and vanity; and from both the last when the first no longer existed. I now shudder when I reflect on my own boldness; and with mortification, when I compare my own writings with those of any great authors. This is So true, that I question"Whether it would be possible for me to summon up courage to publish any thing I have written, if I could recall the past, and should yet think as I think at present. So much for what is over and out of my power. As to writing now, I have totally forsworn the profession, for two solid reasons. One I have already told you; and it is, that I know my own writings are trifling and of no depth. The other is, that, light and futile as they were, I am sensible they are better than I could compose now. I am aware of the decay of the middling parts I had, and others may be still more sensible of it. How do I know but I am superannuated? nobody will be so coarse as to tell me so; but if I published dotage all the world would tell me so. And who but runs that risk who is an author after severity? What happened to the greatest author of this age, and who certainly retained a very considerable portion of his abilities for ten years after my age Voltaire, at eighty-four, I think, Went to Paris to receive the incense, in person, of his countrymen, and to be witness of their admiration of a tragedy he had written at that Methusalem age. Incense he did receive till it choked him; and at the exhibition of his play he was actually crowned with laurel in the box where he sat. But what became of his poor play? It died as soon as he did—was buried with him; and no mortal, I dare to say, has ever read a line of it since, it was so bad.(617)
As I am neither by a thousandth part so great, nor a quarter so little, I will herewith send you a fragment that an accidental rencontre set me upon writing,, and which I found so flat, that I would not finish it. Don't believe that I am either begging praise by the stale artifice of' hoping to be contradicted; or that I think there is any occasion to make you discover my caducity. No; but the fragment contains a curiosity—English verses written by a French prince of the blood, and which at first I had a mind to add to my Royal and Noble Authors, but as he was not a royal author of ours, and as I could not please myself with an account of him, I shall revert to my old resolution of not exposing my pen's gray hairs.(618)
Of one passage I must take notice; it is a little indirect sneer at our crowd of authoresses. My choosing to send this to you is a proof that I think you an author, that is, a classic. But in truth I am nauseated by the Madams Piozzi, etc. and the host of novel-writers in petticoats, who think they imitate what is inimitable, Evelina and Cecilia. Your candour I know will not agree with me, when I tell you I am not at all charmed with Miss Seward and Mr. Hayley piping to one another: but you I exhort, and would encourage to write; and flatter myself you will never be royally gagged and promoted to fold Muslins, as has been lately wittily said on Miss Burney, in the list of five hundred living authors. Your writings promote virtues; and their increasing editions prove their worth and utility. If you question my sincerity, can you doubt my admiring you, when you have gratified my self-love so amply in your Bas Bleu? Still, as much as I love your writings, I respect yet more your heart and your goodness. You are so good, that I believe you would go to heaven, even though there were no Sunday, and only six working days in the week. Adieu, my best Madam!
(617) Madame du Deffand, in a letter to Walpole of the 8th of March 1778, says—"Voltaire se Porte bien: il est uniquement occup`e de sa tragedie d'Ir`ene; on assure qu'on la jouera de demain en huit: si elle n'a pas de succ`es, il en mourra." On the 18th, she again writes—"Le succ`es de la pi`ece a `et`e tr`es mediocre; il y eut cependant beaucouP de claquemens de mains, mais C'`etait Plus Voltaire qui en `etait l'objet que la Pi`ece." He died in the May following.-E.
(618) The French prince of the blood here spoken of, was Charles Duke of Orleans, who being a prisoner at the battle of Agincourt, was brought to England and detained here for twenty.five years. For a copy of the verses, see Walpole's works, vol. i. p. 564.-E.
Letter 319 To The Earl Of Strafford.
Strawberry Hill, August 2, 1788. (page 404)